Gwyneth in plane scare

Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow was unable to attend the Venice Film Festival after the plane she was travelling in was sent back to New York following a technical hitch.

The 32-year-old star was meant to make an appearance with Sir Anthony Hopkins to promote their new film Proof, about a young woman haunted by her father's mathematical genius.

The film, a US/UK production with British Shakespeare In Love director John Madden at the helm, is up for the Golden Lion at the festival.

Today Paltrow still managed to speak at a press conference to promote the film, prior to its US opening on September 16, via a telephone link.

The star, who took some time off after the film was shot, said she had wanted to enjoy being pregnant.

Break from filming

During the press conference, Paltrow spoke about taking a break from acting following the birth in May last year of Apple, her daughter with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

"I was pregnant when I did the first shot of Proof and I started to show by the end of the film," she said.

"It was obviously impossible to do another film role unless it was specifically a pregnant role."

She said: "It was very important to me to take some time to be with myself and my family and take it easy and enjoy being pregnant.

"When I had my daughter, I just fell in love with her, so then I was really reticent about leaving her as a tiny baby and going back to work 14 hours a day.

"I finally went back to work when Apple was 10 months old. It was a really fantastic, exhilarating thing to do, but I was a bit torn that I couldn't put her to sleep every night."

Paltrow was criticised by working mothers when she suggested in an interview, just before giving birth, that she would not feel right working with a young child at home.

But she has projects to keep her busy, including a film about the life of Marlene Dietrich, as well as the movies Dirty Tricks, Have You Heard?, and Love And Other Disasters.

Challenging roles

She told the press conference today: "At this point in my life I'm only interested in doing a role that I feel I'm going to learn something from, that's going to challenge and enrich me as an artist, a person, a mother.

"I don't have that carefree spontaneity any more. I can't just pick up at the last minute and go to a remote location because there's so much to consider.

"Hopefully, the day will come when I can take her (Apple) with me."

Paltrow previously played the role of Catherine, a woman who has spent many years caring for her unstable father, in Proof, on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse.

She said: "When I did the play, my father (director and producer Bruce Paltrow) was alive. When I did the film, I had lost my father.

"I learned a great deal about loss when my father died. It gave me an insight into death and grief and helped me understand this woman (Catherine) and how to get inside her head."

Sir Anthony had taken more than a year off from acting but delved back in after reading the script for Proof.

He described Paltrow as one of the two greatest actresses he has ever worked with, the other being Jodie Foster, who starred with him in The Silence Of The Lambs.

Asked a question about Asian films at the press conference in Venice, the screen legend confessed: "I'm not a great movie-goer."